Brod, Max (1884–1968)

Czech novelist, composer, and biographer. He was a close friend of Franz Kafka, whose work he promoted and published; he also wrote a biography of the latter. He himself wrote 20 novels, including Tycho Brahe (1928), Galileo (1948), Reubeni (1925), and Unambo (1949). Much of his writing has a Jewish theme; an important philosophical work, Paganism, Christianity, and Judaism (1921), helped to establish him as a leading Jewish thinker. At his death in Tel Aviv, he left behind him almost 30 years of creative work in music, drama, and Jewish literature. Brod was born in Prague, in the modern-day Czech Republic.